Witch Branding in India - A Study of Indigenous and Rural Societies

The roots of this violence are not only in the specific religious or cultural beliefs and superstitions, but also in the cold calculations of patriarchal mindsets, in the connivance to deprive women of land and property, to take revenge where women refuse sexual advances and to punish women for petty disputes. [...] However, it is important to note that these treacherous attacks on women being witches come from the close surroundings of the village or home and family, with men as the heads of the families, and where women put their trust in the people they live and work with as observed by Geschiere (2013) in the case of African societies. [...] Is there a justified belief in the existence of witches? Is there a justified belief in the existence of witches? Our fieldwork showed that in most cases it was the ojha who identified a witch in the concerned community. [...] The idea of difference: Strangers in the village The recent market-based economic changes, reinforced by patriarchal socio-political systems have transformed the earlier village-based morality, leading to a breakdown of traditional norms and bringing forth reactions to Witch Branding in India A Study of Indigenous and Rural Societies this breakdown of the norms. [...] The existence of a law against witch-persecution certainly serves to draw attention to the existence of the practice and the necessity of eradicating it.